


Keep Trying

by haganenoheichou



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, M/M, Multi, Orion Shklance Zine, PTSD, They went through an intergalactic war okay?, post canon au, shklance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18325031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: It crept up on them. Sometimes, it happened in broad daylight, right among their peers; among the same, haunted faces that seem caught between what had been and what would be.All they wanted was to have the life they deserved.





	Keep Trying

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! Finally, it's time to post my fic for the [Orion Shklance Zine!](https://shklancezine.tumblr.com) I had always wanted to explore writing about post-traumatic stress and this zine gave me the perfect opportunity. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on it, you rock!

It crept up on them. Sometimes, it happened in broad daylight, right among their peers; among the same, haunted faces that seem caught between what had been and what would be. Sometimes, they woke up with it souring their morning coffee and turning it into burnt toast and tears. Most often, though, it happened at night, when they lay curled up together, sharing one blanket, as if afraid to be separated again. 

Lance knew it wasn't real. He can feel it in the marrow of his bones, that nothing about it was right. Yet, he walked on, his boots falling heavy onto the hollow, metal floor of what once was the Castle of Lions. 

It was empty. There was nothing left inside but debris and a dark, gaping hole, right through the ceiling of the control room. The culprit behind the emptiness. 

But Lance knew it was not space that had killed them all. 

It was him. 

The team’s sharpshooter. 

He remembered it in such vivid detail that he forgot it was a dream the moment the switch happened. He remembered pulling the trigger, hitting the wrong target. He could hear their voices in his head, half-agonized and half-accusing, screaming at him, screaming for his mercy, screaming in accusation, a constant cacophony of everything that he had done wrong. 

He saw Shiro fall, saw him collapse onto the grey steel floors of the Galra cruiser, and all he knew was that there was too much blood, too much blood to live and before he could run to help, he felt his treacherous fingers squeeze the trigger again, sending Keith down as well, fallen in a heap right next to their leader. 

He saw them all – Pidge, Hunk, Coran, the Princess, all the others, all the innocent lives they had promised to protect, all fallen by his hand, a sea of red beneath them. 

He woke up screaming, cold sweat soaking the sheets beneath him and for a moment, a long, painful moment, he believed it, he felt the emptiness of space in his chest and all his breath got sucked out of his chest as he tried to inhale but couldn’t–

He couldn’t breathe and it was less terrifying than the image of his husbands’ gaping mouths, open and dead, like that vortex of nothingness overhead in the control room. 

He wanted to scream, to claw his way out, but it felt as though he had been locked in his own skull. There was nothing to hang on to, nothing to grab to pull himself from this nightmare, so he just shook, he seized and he flailed, the images vivid against his retina. 

There were hands on him, there was noise – voices,  _ people  _ – but he couldn't distinguish the touch of another human from the touch of death, so he thrashed, cried, until he was exhausted, until he could no longer move and slowly, slowly the voices started making sense. 

_ It’s alright.  _

_ It’s over.  _

_ Shhh, we’re here.  _

He sobbed into Shiro’s shoulder and he felt Keith press up behind him, just as sweaty, just as disturbed, and they just held each other until the morning forced them out of bed and into Garrison uniforms. They didn’t talk about it over breakfast, but he knew Shiro was watching him out of the corner of his eye and something about that made him feel warmer. 

* * *

Keith had no idea how it happened. He was in the kitchen, chopping up onions to throw into the pan, when a noise somewhere in the periphery of his consciousness made his ear twitch. Hackles risen, he whipped around and acted, throwing the knife on pure instinct, ready to dismember the sudden attacker.

“Hey!” 

Horror flooded him when he realized it was just Lance – just Lance, now pinned to the opposite wall by his sleeve, nearly missing his flesh. 

“Quiznack, Lance, you can’t just…” Keith stalked over, grabbing the knife and pulling it – he had to apply some force to actually pry it out of the wall. He cursed, wiping the knife on his pants, and then looked up into the wide, terrified eyes of his husband.

That was when it hit him. 

“You can’t just…” He swallowed, his throat suddenly thick with emotion. “You can’t sneak up on me like that, you know it’s–,” He couldn’t finish the sentence because a sob blocked its way, making him hiccup. He stood in front of Lance, knife hanging loosely from his hand, while dinner sizzled away on the stove merrily. 

And all he could think about is how much duller his instincts had become. That if it hadn’t been Lance, if it had been a real threat, he wouldn’t have had time to take them out. 

It messed with his head. 

“Keith?” Lance whispered, and for a long moment, they just looked at each other before Keith’s shoulders slumped and he turned back to the stove. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and he heard Lance move, lunging for him, and suddenly, he was surrounded by Lance, lanky and muscled at the same time, as he wrapped himself around Keith, holding him tightly as if his life depended on it. 

“Don’t be,” Lance whispered into his shoulder, and Keith’s heart broke just a little. “It’s okay, I didn’t get hurt–,” 

“I could have killed you,” Keith murmured, his face hidden in Lance’s shoulder. “If my aim hadn’t been off, I could have–,” 

“–but you didn’t,” Lance breathed. 

“What’s going on here?” 

They whipped around to see Shiro in the doorway, his eyes glued to the knife that clattered to the floor from Keith’s weak grip. 

“It’s nothing,” Lance said quickly, moving to grab the knife but Keith clung to him tightly, unable to let him go. “Keith just had an episode, I’ve got it.” 

Shiro strode across the room and suddenly, Keith felt the heat of his body against his back. He was trapped between the two of them, he knew he should feel trapped, anyway, he should feel afraid; but all he knew was that this stifling warmth was the most real thing he’d felt all evening. 

He let them hold him as he sagged in their arms, finally allowing the tears to slide down his face. Lance and Shiro didn’t say a word. 

They ended up dining on a packet of potato chips. 

* * *

“Anything good on?” Shiro asked Lance, who was perched on the couch, as he walked into the room, exhausted from a day of being the most important person on the Garrison campus. Though being Commander became Shiro in every way – he felt like he had somehow grown even taller, more mature and  _ better –  _ the kind of responsibility he’d had to take up came with a price.

He was not the only one – both Keith and Lance had been forced to mature way too quickly, with Keith’s stint as a Blade, and, later, as the leader of Voltron; and Lance’s MVP position on the team, plus all the rebuilding he’d been doing lately with the families of the fallen. It was a lot to process, on top of the regular drills and fly-outs they still had to do in order to help other planets that had been affected by the Galra.

Shiro, though exhausted, still felt  _ good.  _ At times, he wondered whether the clone’s body was just much better than his actual one had been. He didn't know how to feel about that particular thought. 

“Nothing,” Lance replied, putting the remote down. The screen buzzed with random news segments as Shiro bent down to drop a kiss on Lance’s lips. “How was work?” 

Shiro shrugged, throwing himself down onto the couch next to Lance. He put his head in Lance’s lap and immediately felt fingers in his hair. Smiling, he closed his eyes. 

“Lots to do,” he mumbled. “I wish someone else could transform ATLAS besides me.” 

“What about Coran?” Lance asked curiously. 

“We’ve been trying, but…” Shiro trailed off with a sigh, feeling the muscles in his forehead begin to pinch into a frown. “I don’t know, apparently it’s just me who can do it.” 

Lance hummed, his hand is Shiro’s hair. “It’s been taking a toll on you, hasn’t it?” 

Shiro nodded quietly. 

“Well, you’re home now,” Lance said. “Keith’s gonna be back later, he had a bunch of Blades to train in Hangar Seven.” 

Shiro grunted in response to that, feeling proud of Keith. He’d come a long way since–

He looked up at the screen only to feel his entire body seize up as it caught up with what he was seeing before his rational mind did. 

“–the Galra atrocities committed throughout the war, leading to the enslavement of thousands–,” 

_ Dark. Purple. Cold metal under his knees– _

“Shiro?”

He felt as if he was underwater, everything happening just a little too slow, too muffled. He thought he heard Lance’s voice and he thought he felt Lance shaking him but those feelings were overpowered by the sterile stench of the Galra prison, the tang of metallic blood on his tongue, and the burn in his knuckles as he hit, hit,  _ hit _ –,

“ _ Shiro! _ ” 

He was pinned down, and he saw yellow –  _ glowing, yellow eyes  _ – stare down at him. He thrashed beneath his attacker, trying to punch him with everything he had, to grab him by the neck and pull his arms out of his sockets– 

“Shiro!” 

His arm – his robotic arm, they powered it down, they– if only he could just reach–

“Shiro!” 

He felt a stab in his neck, something long and cold, and his world swam before his eyes even more. With a groan, he felt himself sag against the floor, weakly trying to fight back against the Galra with just one arm. Then, everything went black. 

When he came to, he found himself in bed, in the dimly-lit bedroom – they didn’t sleep without lights anymore for a reason. He felt like he had been run over by a truck and he reached up to feel the band-aid on the side of his neck. 

The memory of what had happened slowly trickled into his conscious mind, making his muscles freeze. 

He stumbled out of bed, almost tripping over his own feet, and ran for the door. He almost ripped it off its hinges because waiting for it to slide open was torture–

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. 

The entire living room was a wreck. The screen, gone, shattered against the wall. The stuffing was protruding out of the couch and the cushions and the lamps were flickering dangerously as they swung overhead, ripped out of their sockets. 

Among the wreckage sat Keith and Lance. As Shiro made his way over to them, their faces swam into view. 

“What… what did I do?” He whispered. 

The two of them looked over at him and his heart stuttered. Keith had a huge bruise around his eye, bulging out against his pallid skin. A gash across his chest, his uniform in tatters.

Lance looked somewhat better – he seemed alright besides the gigantic bandage across his face, hiding his nose from view. Shiro had broken his  _ nose _ . 

“Shiro, you’re up,” Keith said, giving Lance one last once-over before closing the first-aid kit. He smiled painfully as he stood up off the floor. He took a step closer to Shiro who shrank back, eyes wide. 

“I… Did I do all this?” He choked out. “I… I did this. I did this to you and to Lance and–,” 

“Shiro, listen to me,” Keith cut him off, sounding almost impatient. “You didn’t do anything, you saw the show onscreen and it–,” 

“ _ I  _ did it, Keith!” Shiro interrupted, feeling bile rise in his throat. “I’m the one who… I attacked you. I attacked Lance! How can you just…” Words abandoned him as he looked at the two of them, both almost serene, watching him struggle. 

“Shiro, it’s okay,” Lance said. He stood up as well. “There’s no harm done, we can replace all this shit and, well, scars make me look dashing anyway, so–,” 

“Lance, this isn’t a  _ joke _ !” Shiro snapped. 

The young man stopped moving for just a second, watching Shiro, his chest heaving, before he stalked over and grabbed Shiro’s human wrist. “No, you listen to me.” 

“This isn’t a joke. I know that. This is our life now. And there’s nothing we can do right now but work on it and support each other,” he said, getting into Shiro’s personal space. “And we are, but you know what? We’re  _ exhausted _ . Which means we will have bad days.  _ I have bad days.  _ Keith has bad days, and so do  _ you _ . So don’t you  _ dare  _ blame yourself for what just happened because you’re  _ sick _ . We’re all.  _ Sick _ .” 

Shiro’s eyes widened. He didn’t know whether he wanted to smack some sense into Lance or kiss him or both or neither, but what ended up happening was that he collapsed to his knees. 

There were arms around him instantly, with some pained hisses and groans as his family wound themselves around him. His eyes burned with tears and for the first time tonight, it felt like the emotions he was feeling were finally his. 

“We’re gonna get better, Shiro,” Keith whispered hoarsely, his mouth flush against the shell of Shiro’s ear. “We’re gonna get better because we owe it to ourselves.” 

“And to all the people out there–,”

“– _ screw  _ all those other people,” Keith said in a harsh whisper. “We do it for ourselves because we deserve it. We deserve to have a good. Damn.  _ Life _ .” 

“We’ll never be done fighting,” Lance murmured, stroking Shiro’s hair awkwardly. “But that doesn’t mean that we have to feel like we are, all the time.” 

A choked whimper escaped him, so completely un-Shiro-like, and the floodgates opened for all of them. 

They sat on the floor among the wreckage of their room, holding each other, crying, laughing,  _ hurting _ . 

They didn’t know what would happen next. They didn’t know whether the fight would ever be really, truly over. They didn’t know whether seeing a doctor, a healer, a shrink, would help but they would be damned if they didn’t try everything they could. 

All they knew was they had to move on. And they would keep doing that until they could convince their memories to stop haunting them. 

Just keep trying. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out [Orion Shklance Zine](https://shklancezine.tumblr.com), as well as my own tumblr, haganenoheichou.


End file.
